THOMAS CUP & UBER CUP 2010: Denmark leads European challenge, Thursday world rankings to decide last finalists

Denmark will lead Europe’s challenge in the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup finals in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 9-16 May. The Danes have a well balanced squad with veteran Peter Gade still going strong and ably supported by the likes of Jan Jorgensen, Joachim Pearson and the doubles pairs of Carsten Mogensen-Mathias Boe and Lars Paaske-Jonas Rasmussen.


With England a notable omission from Europe, joining Denmark in the Finals from Europe are Germany and Poland in the Thomas Cup and Germany and Russia in the Uber Cup. However, whether Europe gets an additional qualifier in both competitions will only be known after Thursday’s March 4 world ranking calculations.


Teams will also be seeded based on the March 4 world rankings and it will be interesting to see if China will be installed top seeds in the Thomas Cup or whether Malaysia, who occupy the No 1 spot in men’s singles and men’s doubles, will be seeded ahead of China. The draw for the Finals set to be released by the Badminton World Federation on Monday, March 8.


Asia and Europe each get an automatic three spots in the Finals with an additional spot to be determined between the two fourth placed teams from the European and Asian continental qualifiers. Ukraine and Netherlands finished fourth in the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup qualifiers in Europe while Japan and India were the fourth placed teams in Asia.
The overall world ranking points of a team will be determined based on the total ranking points of the highest ranked three singles players and two doubles pairs in the BWF world ranking list which means Ukraine will be compared with Japan while Netherlands will be compared against India in the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup respectively. Hosts Malaysia and defending champions China qualify automatically for the Finals.


Peru (Pan America), Nigeria (Africa) and Australia (Oceania) are the other teams who qualified for the Thomas Cup while USA (Pan America), Nigeria (Africa) and Australia (Oceania) are the successful qualifiers in the Uber Cup.


Indonesia, India and Korea complete the cast from Asia in the Thomas Cup while in the Uber Cup, Korea, Japan and Indonesia qualified. The Finals will be played at the Putra Indoor Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


Qualifiers:


Thomas Cup: China (Defending Champions), Malaysia (Host), Nigeria (Africa), Indonesia, Korea, India (Asia), Denmark, Poland, Germany (Europe), Australia (Oceania), Peru (Pan Am). To be decided: Ukraine or Japan.


Uber Cup: China (Defending Champions), Malaysia (Host), Nigeria (Africa), Korea, Japan, Indonesia (Asia), Denmark, Russia, Germany (Europe), Australia (Oceania), USA (Pan Am). To be decided: Netherlands or India.